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Safety watchdog urges changes in oversight of commercial aviation

Transport Canada is failing to ensure airlines are complying with regulations, increasing the potential for accidents, safety board says.

The safety board's warnings are contained in a recently released report into the forced landing of a Buffalo Airways DC-3, above, that suffered an engine fire shortly after it took off from Yellowknife on Aug. 19, 2013 (CBC News)

OTTAWA—A safety watchdog is urging Ottawa to change the way it oversees commercial aviation, saying its failure to ensure airlines are complying with regulations is increasing the risk of accidents.

Transport Canada has been preoccupied with how aviation companies are managing their internal safety programs “almost to the exclusion” of verifying whether the firms are actually complying with the rules.

That means unsafe practices and conditions could continue, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada says.

The focus of the safety board’s concerns are the so-called safety management systems introduced by Transport Canada that has seen government inspectors step back and allow individual companies manage — and police — the safety of their own operations.

But board investigators warn that Transport Canada has become too focused on how companies are managing these safety programs rather overseeing the actual safety of their operations.

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Safety investigators are calling for stepped-up inspections to ensure compliance with regulations, in addition to audits of safety programs.

“If (Transport Canada) does not adopt a balanced approach . . . unsafe operating practices may not be identified, thereby increasing the risk of accidents,” the board said.

The pilots shut down the engine but were unable to make it back to the airport and were forced to land in a field. None of the 21 passengers was injured.

The investigation revealed that the airline had a practice of failing to properly calculate the weight of the aircraft before takeoff. On the day of the accident, the DC-3 was overweight, which can hinder performance, especially when one engine fails.

Buffalo Airways had a safety management system in place but the safety board concluded it was “ineffective at identifying and correcting unsafe operating practices.”

That’s because the airline management was frequently “at odds” with Transport Canada, questioning the competence and motivation of inspectors.

The board concludes that Buffalo Airways met only the basic requirement of regulations “and then only when pushed.”

Transport Canada’s “risk-based” approach to oversight is meant to focus attention on operators likely to have the most problems. Yet the safety board says Transport Canada’s own assessments of the airline were focused solely on its SMS program and completely missed potential problems in its operations, such as the failure to calculate aircraft weights before takeoff.

In a statement to the Star, Transport Canada said it would review the safety board’s findings but defended its oversight of civil aviation, pointing to a drop in accidents since 2000 as evidence of the safety of air travel in Canada.

And it said that safety management systems are an important part of ensuring aviation safety.

“In addition to having to comply with aviation safety rules, SMS helps a company identify safety risks before they become bigger problems,” the department said in a statement.

But the department said it “regularly” inspects air operators to ensure compliance and identify risks, adding that in 2014-15, it conducted 18,000 “oversight activities.”

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